I had the chance to interview successful alumna Heather Fasching, 24, who graduated from St. Edward’s University with a degree in English writing and rhetoric in 2013. Since then, she began contract work as a technical editor for Shell Oil Company in Houston, Texas.

Did you enter St. Edward’s with a specific degree and career plan in mind?

I did actually start off as a writing major, but then somewhere down the line changed my mind and then somehow ended back up where I started.

What activities were you involved with during your four years here?

I played club soccer, which didn’t actually start till my junior year. I was involved in Arete academic journal, so I helped edit for that, and I was an editor for Hilltop Views my senior year. I studied abroad [in Spain], so I worked with the Office of International Education, and I worked [for] the athletic department.

What are you doing now?

I currently work at Shell, but to be clear, I’m actually a contractor, so I’m not employed by Shell. I’m employed by [CGI], but I do work at Shell, so they’re like my client I guess you could say. I’ve been there for almost two years. I edit technical reports for all our authors in the US, Canada, and South America, but the vast majority are in Houston. I work at a technology center, so most of the research I help publish is being done at the labs on-site. The reports can be anything from a 20-page facility audit to a 300-page report of geology research supporting investment in a field to a 60-page lab report on fuel efficiency tests. I really love how diverse the research is. Every day I read about something different.

What does your average week look like?

I’m pretty spoiled. I work a 9-80, which means that I get every other Friday off, because I work nine hour days Monday through Thursday and then eight-hour days Friday and then every other Friday off, so it works out to 80 hours in two weeks. I also get to work from home every Tuesday, so every other week I only have to go into the office three times, and it’s wonderful.

Do you see yourself staying there, or where do you see yourself in five years?

That’s a good question. I love what I do. I didn’t really plan to do anything this technical, but I actually have found that I really love it and I really love the technical field. I do hope that in the next five years, I would have maybe moved up or moved to another team. I do editing for the technical reports, but there’s a huge variety of other publications that go on within the company that have different types of editors and different types of writers, so I see a lot of opportunity to move around and move up in the company. I hope to stay in Shell or at least in oil and gas, but I do hope to move up.

If you could go back in time a couple of years, would you change anything about the four years you spent here?

The only thing that I would say is that my freshman year I was not involved in anything, and I was miserable, and I didn’t know anybody. I would go back and tell myself to get over yourself, because I made my best friends on the soccer team and I had the best time editing late nights with Hilltop Views’ [staff]. I just wish that I had gotten involved sooner because I loved every minute of it.

Do you have any advice for graduating seniors?

Don’t be afraid to take risks, because I originally didn’t plan to move back to Houston. I wanted to stay in Austin, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, and I’ve actually been really happy here. A lot of the people I know took jobs that maybe they thought were out of their comfort zone, and they ended up being the best thing for them, so I guess just go for it!

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